


Future Textbook Material

by blueteak



Category: The West Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 05:46:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11662848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/pseuds/blueteak
Summary: Josh is convinced he's going to lose both his job and Leo, just when things were finally getting started.





	Future Textbook Material

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Highlander_II](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Highlander_II/gifts).



“You wanted to talk to me, sir?” Josh asked after everyone had left the room. Everyone. Even Leo, who hadn’t even looked back at him reassuringly as he always did when Josh was about to get dressed down but good by someone other than Leo himself. 

“Yeah,” the president responded, returning to his desk and busying himself arranging a stack of papers that really couldn’t have anything to do with the colossal fuck up Josh had made. Josh didn't know who Bartlet thought he was fooling. It was too soon for reams of paper regarding that matter to have been produced. And anyway, this wasn’t something the administration would want a record of.

Though maybe there was actually a record and someone who didn't know better, thinking the president would want to know all the details (thinking that all presidents would love to know even when it would be best to keep them ignorant of certain things) had written it down in a memo and Bartlet was sitting there looking at it and was going to tell him that he would try to make sure it didn't get out, but would have to fire him so that he wouldn’t have to risk ever covering for him again. Or he was going to tell him that he wasn’t going to smooth things over and this was going in the official presidential records and some day schoolchildren would read about the horrendous mistake Joshua Lyman had made under president…well, they wouldn’t have to be sure of the president’s name. Bartlet, in the mind of this future schoolchild, could be confused with Kennedy or Johnson.They would just remember the name of the staffer who had flown so high, but then sunk so low…

That had to be it. Josh was finished at the White House whether he got fed to the press or not. That had to be why Leo hadn’t looked at him, hadn’t softened the blow at all. They must be over too. And they’d just gotten started, just gotten past the awkward stage that had begun after Josh had realized that he hadn’t just been imagining the feeling of Leo’s eyes on his ass or the reason for Leo’s hastily averted gaze whenever Josh stretched after a late night of budget negotiating or office basketball. 

Josh had finally realized that Leo would never make the first move and had confronted him head on, fairly confident that his “Yank Leo onto my mouth by pulling on his tie” move wouldn’t result in any more awkwardness than was normal when a subordinate (who also an old friend's son) made a pretty obvious pass in his boss's hotel room/home.

To say it hadn't been easy would be putting it mildly. However, they were figuring it out. They'd learned one another’s bodies better. When and where to touch. What would or wouldn’t result in one or both of them worrying about their age difference and how long the other party could really want it to last. When it was okay to talk about work before, during, or after sex. When it definitely wasn’t. 

And now it was all going to be over. Any minute now, Bartlet was going to stop shuffling those papers and fire him, terminating his employment, his relationship, and his self respect.

Except…Bartlet wasn’t sitting behind his desk any longer. He was seated on the couch. 

When he noticed that Josh had finally become aware of that fact, he gestured that Josh should have a seat on the opposite sofa.  


“Tonight marks a first in so many ways, Josh,” the president began.

“Sir, I’m so sorry. I should never have said—" It wasn’t that Josh was trying to head off the chastisement, it was just that he needed to get his apology out. And apparently he wasn’t going to be allowed to.

“It’s certainly not the first time senior staff has screwed up, Josh. Or the first time you’ve screwed up,” Bartlet said, fixing Josh with a quelling look. “Or the first time you’ve interrupted me. Don’t do it again.” 

“No sir,” Josh said quietly, though the temptation to ask what Bartlet was going to talk to him about if not just his fuck up was strong.

“I asked you to sit down because you looked like you were going to fall down. One of the firsts I was going to tell you about: this is the first time my “Shuffle papers and make someone who’s pissed me off wait" trick has resulted in someone turning grey and then not even noticing me when I finally deign to pay attention to them. Do you think I relish either being ignored or the idea of having to call Abbey in here because I’ve finally succeeded in giving one of my staffers a heart attack?”

Josh shook his head, not knowing whether he was allowed to speak yet.

“You're right, Josh, neither would be acceptable to me. And do you think I’d have enjoyed breaking the news to Leo if you'd keeled over?”

Josh paled. They hadn’t told anyone. Had worked together as normal and…the president couldn’t mean **that**. He meant Leo-as-Josh’s-mentor wouldn’t be happy. Not that it mattered any longer. He was dead to Leo anyway, now that he was going to be fired for his colossal….

The president broke into his thoughts. “Dead to Leo? Fired?” Okay, so he’d been saying all of that out loud.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this after I was supposed to chew you out but good, but you didn’t screw up that badly. Should you have said what you did? No. But it’s ‘Stay behind and get yelled at in the Oval’ bad, not ‘Hand over your West Wing pass and get talked about as political poison on CNN’ bad.”

Josh’s relief was so strong he felt weak. He knew he should thank the president, promise to do better and leave, but he was feeling a little wobbly. 

“Don’t even think about getting up, we’re not done yet,” the president informed him.

Josh sagged back against the couch and tried not to look relieved that he could at least remain seated. 

The president, since his legs weren’t currently made of jello, walked over to Josh's sofa, then sat back down and eyed him.

Josh tensed. 

“Dead to Leo,” the president snorted. “You’re being more ridiculous than that time you started a fire in the Mural Room. No, no wait—more ridiculous than that time you found out about Lemon Lyman. No, wait, I’ve got it—“

Josh was beginning to feel a lot less grateful about not being fired. He started getting ready to interrupt, only to be once again held in place on the sofa by the power of the president’s glare. 

“You will sit there and listen to how ridiculous you are for thinking you'd ever be dead to Leo until I’m done telling you because even if you hadn’t been carrying on with my chief of staff unbeknownst to me for the past three months, you’d still be his old friend’s kid he’s got to take care of.”

The president paused. “That didn’t sound right, did it?”

Josh’s eyebrows climbed to his hairline. “No sir, it did not.”

“About as right as the chief of staff making his deputy his lover?” Bartlet enquired in what could be taken to be a mild tone of voice. If you were a fool.

“With all due respect, sir, this isn’t something Leo and I haven’t been negotiating and working through. And I’m the one who started, it!”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” the president said. “But you theoretically read ethics guidelines when you took this job and you went to law school. You know an employer can’t take up with an employee, let alone one who’s the son of his old friend. What do you think Leo would have done to me if I’d been your father’s friend and started spending nights in your bed?”

Josh didn’t even have to consider. “He’d have given you the shovel talk with an actual shovel nearby.”

“Exactly,” the president nodded. “And I’m sure he gave himself a version of that talk in the mirror. Probably gives it to himself every day. But giving yourself one isn’t very effective, so I had to take care of that for him.”

“You gave Leo a shovel talk for me?” Josh asked, looking around as though to make sure he was sitting in the Oval Office and not a dreamland filled with cotton candy and talking cats. He'd wanted to ask when the president had found out as well as when this talk had taken place, but had gone with the most pressing question first.

“Yes, if you consider ‘He’s your deputy and your old friend’s son and have you and he both thought long and hard about the power dynamics here and if you hurt him and don’t exile yourself to Antarctica I will and by the way, sexual harassment policies, have you read them?’ a shovel talk.”

“That….certainly sounds like one.”

“Another first, Josh. Shovel talks about senior staff members.”

“I take it you’re not pleased, sir.”

“No,” Bartlet said, drawing out the word. “I’m not pleased that you kept this from me even though I can damn well understand why you did. I need to know something like this is consensual and not resulting in even more nepotism.”

Josh shrank back. “But now that you know, won’t you have to re-assign Leo or me? Legally speaking?” He might just lose his job after all.

“Re-assign you to where? Toby would kill you in Communications and if the words ‘Press Secretary’ come out of your mouth, you really will be dead to Leo because you’ll be dead. No. You’re still going to be working under Leo—forget I said it that way—but you report to both of us. And if Leo can’t bring himself to yell at you about your screw ups, you better believe I will.”

“Yes, sir,” Josh nodded. “And you won’t have to report this anywhere else?”

“I talked to Babish after I talked to Leo. You may have to talk to him. This gets out, you may be working for Toby, though.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Don’t screw up again the way you did today and let me know if anything feels off with Leo. He’s an old friend and he would want me calling him on it if he ever slipped, especially with you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Another first: multiple ‘Yes, sirs’ from you. Goodnight.”

By the time Josh arrived on Leo’s doorstep, his legs felt a lot less watery, but he still needed to make sure he wasn’t dead to Leo. He also needed a drink.

“You look like hell,” Leo said, eying him up and down. “Did the president jump up and down on you?”

“Mmm,” Josh replied, remembering the president reporting that he’d been told to chew Josh out. “Did you tell him to?”

“I don’t order the president to do anything, but I did suggest that you needed a spanking.”  


Josh’s eyebrows found themselves climbing near his hairline for the second time that evening, but then he decided to just go with it.

“Why didn’t you do it? It’s not like you don’t know how, and you yell at me about things all the time.”

“Yelling at you about putting too much ketchup on the fries at dinner isn’t the same as yelling at you the way you needed to be yelled at for what happened. I didn’t want to do it and I was feeling bad about keeping our new situation from him, so I told him why I didn't want to do it. After the shovel talk he gave me, I didn’t feel one bit guilty about delegating shouting at you duties to the president. So. I hope it was effective.”

Josh winced, rubbing his ass. “Yeah, I’m still feeling a bit sore.”

Leo startled for a second before remembering his own spanking metaphor.

Josh caught it and laughed. “You actually thought the president had taken my pants down in the Oval Office for a second.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Leo growled, crowding into Josh’s space. “Well, I’m certainly about to take them down here.”

They could talk about why Leo hadn't told Josh he was telling the president about their relationship as well as this new reporting structure and Babish later. Maybe over dinner with a ton of ketchup on the fries.


End file.
